Precedence Table

In C#, operators are acted on based on the order of precedence of the language. As a developer, you should use parentheses to specifically set the order of precedence, as well as to make your code easier to read (see the "Logical Operators" section earlier in this chapter for examples of using parentheses).

When the compiler encounters an expression with multiple operators, the precedence table is used to evaluate the order of operations. If an operand is between two operators that have the same precedence, the associativity of the operators is used to determine the order of operations. Except for the assignment operator, all binary operators are left associative. The assignment operator (=) and the ternary operator (?:) are right associative. For example, the following:

a = b = c;

is equal to

a = (b = c);

Table 2-2 shows the precedence table for C# operators.

Table 2-2: C# Precedence Order

Category	Operator	Description
Primary	(x)	Grouping
	x.y	Member access
	−>	Struct pointer member access
	f(x)	Method calla
	a[x]	Indexing
	++	Postincrement
	x−−	Postdecrement
	new	Constructor
	stackalloc	Array stack allocation
	typeof	Type retrieval
	sizeof	Struct size retrieval
	checked	Arithmetic check on
	unchecked	Arithmetic check off
Unary	+	Positive value
	−	Negative value
	!	Not
	~	Bitwise complement
	++x	Preincrement
	−−x	Predecrement
	(T)x	Type casting
Value at address—dereference
	&	Address of value
MultiplicativeMultiply
	/	Division
	%	Division remainder
Additive	+	Add
	−	Subtract
Shift	<<	Shift left
	>>	Shift right
Relational	<	Less than
	>	Greater than
	<=	Less than or equal
	>=	Greater than or equal
	is	Type equality
Equality	==	Equal
	!=	Not equal
Logical Bitwise	&	AND
	^	XOR
	|	OR
Logical Boolean	&&	And
	||	Or
	?:	Returns one of two values depending on the value of a Boolean expression
Assignment	= *= /=	Assign/modify
	+= −= <<=
	>>= &= ^=
	|=